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Monday, May 17, 2010

Monday, May 17, 2010

Okay, I get it. I know we're in a recession. I know we're all cutting corners to save some cash. I know we're all trying to shave precious minutes off our day so we can get home in time for LOST.

But can we stop sacrificing cake in order to save a few bucks? Can't we give every person his/her own special celebratory confection? (And for the love of Betty Crocker, whose idea was it to have less cake around during a party?)

Maybe it's because celebrating several things at once makes for a great party word-puzzle:

Just to recap: "Congrad Jonathan on 10th Congrad Wendy on 5pm & Happy Birthday IaKeia."(Coincidentally, last time I celebrated my 10th and 5pm, I was at IKEA.)

Maybe it's because sometimes you need a reason to use up those extra office supplies:

And if you take a bite with a straight pin in it, you get to keep it!(I guess when they told the bakery to "tack on" a few more names, they took it literally.)

Or maybe it's because busy cakes allow the decorator to hide unsightly monikers amongst a sea of names:

The first one really had me confused. Why are they celebrating 5 PM? Is it happy hour? I was laughing so hard at the last one. Either Anus is a very unfortunate nickname or the person's name is really Enis and the wreckerator didn't bother clarifying.

1) maybe they were ordering a pickup time? 2 (misspelled) graudation cakes and a birthday cake to be picked up on the 10th at 5 p.m. Or maybe they were supposed to be all on the same cake. still, 10th at 5pm I'm guessing is a pickup time. Or maybe they celebrate one graduation on the day, one at the time, and the birthday person, well, whatever for him/her. they couldn't even get his/her name right! Or maybe they were supposed to celebrate at IKEA too? IKEA employees? *shrug*

2) Please tell me those post its are on the cakebox and not STAPLED INTO THE ACTUAL CAKE. Poor Tom, Bert and Phil, forever known as "afterthoughts." MUST be an office party where they decided it was just too expensive to have six cakes (or three) and then realized, "oops, these three guys have birthdays this month too? what do we do? we already picked up the cake? here, grab those post-its. I have an idea...."

The first one... I think the order taker at the bakery had several people holding, but only one order slip left on the pad, so they wrote the info for three orders on a single order slip. Then...a wreckerator got ahold of the slip and in typical fashion, failed to separate the orders from one another, and just about everything else on the slip.

i was looking at the closeup of the post-it cake to see if maybe the bakery put little sugar/fondant notes on it because they didn't manage to fit all names because i couldn't believe someone would actually pin paper on a cake. with metal pins even. but sadly the one in the upper right corner has a little fat soaked up already. it is paper *shakes head in disbelief*

and for Anus... maybe the poor girl's name is Agnes and the wreckator tried to make up for the forgotten "g" with an extra line after the n?

The wreckorator who did the Post-it note cake also was also too lazy to make up a new batch of dark pink frosting, as seen by the fade from pink to white along the edge and the rose at the bottom. Tom, Bert and Phil lose again.

Okay, two comments here. One, those straight pins? They look AWFULLY similar to the pins used to hold back skin, etc. in dissections. Ewwwww. Two, I'm going to guess the pink and black cake has a misspelling of "Angus". At least, I really really hope so.

Going down the list of comments, I see many suggestions for what poor Anus is really called, and strangely *no two are alike.* I see Iris, Amos, Linus, Agnes, Avis, Agnus, and Anu, and I feel no closer to resolution!

*What could it be?*

Personally, I'm going to throw my vote behind Amos. If it was a phone order, I can understand how someone might hear "anus," but I *can't* understand why they wouldn't immediately ask for clarification.

Perhaps the saddest thing about the Post-it/t-pin cake is that a creative wreckerator could fit those names into the spaces around the existing names. At least this one wasn't the wreckerator's fault, though.

When news and cakes collide... I guarantee you Jonathan the producer was promoted to the 10pm news, Wendy took over the 5pm show, and the big boss remembered at the last minute that Inkaneia the Sports Intern had a birthday coming up.

Anus and Anas are actually moderately popular Pakastani men's names. Yeah, I know. If it makes you feel better, it's not pronounced the same, although I'd probably go by something else if that was my name and I lived in an English speaking country.

This is really reaching, but I'm wondering if Anus was supposed to be Anne? The u looks like the Wreckerator's n only kind of sloppy, and the s is almost like an unfinished e. And the first cake, well maybe they're Ikea workers, not only celebrating Ikea's birthday, but also promotions. Jonathan's been promoted to the coveted aisle 10 duty, and Wendy's now shift supervisor starting at 5pm.......ok so I've got nothing.

Hey! Our office just got the same May Birthday cake as Anus. No one had their name misspelled though, but there was a couple of people we forgot about so if only.... if only, we had thought about the Post-It Notes!!! If only!

Oh! thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!! I work at a grocery store and I have to do at least one cake a day with like 10 names squeezed on it! After a while I've tried suggesting to them that perhaps we should just go with "Happy Birthday" rather than try to list everyone because of space issues. That doesn't stop a lot of them.

Or we get the ones that say "Happy Birthday Josh, Love Mom and Dad!" It's not a letter or a card people, it's a cake.

Does anyone else think any writing on a cake is kinda tacky? I can see if it's something cute, once for a baby shower cake I wrote "Which will it be, a he or a she?" because they didn't know what the sex was. But most of the time, I try to leave writing off of a cake. My thoughts are everyone already knows why they're there, why does the cake have to remind them?

@ Vickie:That "fade" or *ombre* effect is intentional! I've seen it in stores many times recently; it must be the hotular thing now. Anyway, Why don't we relax and just admire the *satiny* effect on the roses...the Genuine Curling Ribbon embedded in the frosting...actual metal staples used on the name tags (so they can't blow away!)...and the elegant script-work of the names of those who WEREN'T afterthoughts?

I work at a grocery store bakery and the things some people want me to cram on a cake, it's laughable. There was one guy who wanted a cake to split between three people's birthdays. He got the smallest cake because he was cheap, had me put a spiderman skit on it (which is bigger then the cake itself BTW) and had me write all three of their full names. I regret never taking a picture of it. It was so ridiculous. lol

No-one's commented on the first cake's other wrecky aspect... the "congrad"! Maybe Jonathan came 10th in a big, important competition, and Wendy's just thrilled when 5 p.m. rolls around and she's off for the day? And anybody got a guess what name "Iakeia" could be, assuming it was a person not the store?

With the black icing and the streamers... why not add some post-its to an office cake. They're a key work-related item! Um, yeah.

As for poor Anus... given the spelling of the other names, I suspect this is correct, and it's someone who was named in a different country where the name is perfectly fine. As someone with a name that's unpronouncable to most Anglophones, I can sympathize. Although, if my name was so unfortunate in the language of my chosen country, that's what middle-names, nicknames, or legally changed names are for!!

I can't decide if it's worse to have wrecked someone's name into Anus, or that it was supposed to read "Anns" for the multiple Anns in the office. Not only do the Anns have to share their birthday cake with the other birthdayers, they don't even get noted individually! Yeesh. Maybe our office policy of ignoring all birthdays, anniversaries, etc. isn't so bad after all.

I believe that the faded, or "ombre" effect there is intentional--it seems to be the hotular thing at stores in my area.

Why don't we relax and enjoy the fine points of this thing? For example, we can admire the copious use of REAL curling ribbon embedded in the frosting, and the satiny sheen of those roses...looks just like someone licked them, because they're so yummy.

Then there is the diligent use metal staples to hold the name tags on (so as not to blow away~~we know how breezy it can get in the bakery dept.)

Finally, we can appreciate the work that went into the fine script on those whose names WEREN'T important. There. Don't you feel better now?

WTH? What happened was , when I went to post my comment, I got a message thingy that said there was some sort of "ERROR." So, I did it over (a bit different 'cause I couldn't remember what I did the first time).Disregard one or the other...or BOTH!! Look, I'm REALLY not schizophrenic, here!Neither am I!

One more possibility on the last one: Anush, which is a male name in India. (It's pronounced ah-Noosh.) Let's not forget that not every name out there is of American origin, and that words or names that have humorous/unfortunate meanings in English do not translate the same way elsewhere. :)

That poor wreckerator! She didn't realize what she wrote until she got to Michael's name & saw what she wrote above! Wonder why she didn't fix it? Maybe she thought no one would notice??Oops, gotta go. Time to watch last week's LOST episode again. Has anyone made an island smoke monster cake yet? Yummy - lots of black icing!WV: tints - I'm really tints about how LOST is going to end!

I cannot believe, ok maybe I can, that there is someone out there with the name of Anus.. oh come on wreckerators! I think the person decorating that cake had a bit much to drink and said the heck with it when she/he couldn't read the names to put on the cake. I fear for whoever picked up that cake.

You know we spend too much time reading Cake Wrecks when it takes til 2:20pm for anyone to mention "Congrads". I guess everyone figured, "Oh, yeah, did that last week. Could have been worse."

By the way, I like the Post-It Notes cake idea. Not the actual paper and T-pins, but I can just see future cakes with little fondant sticky notes and piped pins. A great idea for these multi-celebration cakes.

At an office I managed, we did away with the birthday cake thing entirely. It was just too much trouble to gather donations, order, pick up, etc., as well as even remember that it was someone's birthday. So I instituted "If it's your birthday, you bring the donuts day." Nothing says "Happy Birthday" like a box of Krispy Kreme. Um, donuts.

Our work used to do an individual cake for each person's birthday. We were once a very small company that suddenly grew into a public company. Before they finally switched to group cakes, we were having cake two or three times a week every week. It was insane! As a company we were collectively becoming closer to obesity, heart problems, and type II diabetes.

Now we do cake once a month for all occasions where cake should be celebrated (for the most part). It, as you have shown with this post, has created new issues with celebrating in the work place.

This post inspired a wreck-tastic dream last night. I was in a bakery and of the four pre-decorated cakes all four of them were wrecks. I was hopping with excitement and borrowed a camera from a total stranger so I could document. Only then did I see the "No Photos" sign and the owner of the establishment peering round with suspicion.

I think the name on the cake was "Anna." It's just that the wreckerater had a huge problem with penmanship and that last A looks like an "s" while the middle n looks like a "u." I know it's a late post, but I thought I might ease someone's mind. : )

I have also encountered the feminine name "Annis", and was momentarily unsure how to pronounce it. Right after the birth of our third child, I overheard with horror (through the curtain drawn around my bed) the name bestowed on the innocent baby girl in the next bed. Hospital employee: "What name do you want on the birth certificate?" Proud Mom: "VaJeanna" Employee: "Um, how do you spell that?" Mom: "V-A-G-I-N-A"!

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